My hair is currently in what could very graciously be called a Fraggle Updo currently. My bra is already off and I am wearing a long t shirt that says "Wild at Heart", grey sweat pants, two seasons ago Victoria Secret slippers. There is a trickle of menses between my thighs, my snout is encrusted in dry skin from the week long illness I still haven't shaken off. My hands smell of Gardenia because I spilled some essential oil on them while trying to fix a candle.

O my sister #QueensInExile. We are in the heart of the dark. Truly. This is where dreams are burned into the backs of our eyes. This is where we make our triumphant to court, crowned in glory and holly, cloven orange pomanders jauntily swinging at our waists, champagne is an endless fountain and marchpane cascading from the table with the possibilities of the new year bright in everyone's eyes. This year, we whisper to ourselves and each other, this year will be different.

Darkness and Awakening. These are, in my personal estimation and temperature taking of the zeitgeist, the two great themes of 2017. Whether you look at the year from a macro or micro view, take it personally or put a more universal perspective to your lens, these are the recurring motifs. Even the 2017 Word of the Year that has been identified is complicit. It speaks both of a knowing darkness and a guilty glimmer of self-insight. We ask ourselves these days if we are 'Woke.' That implies awakening from, perhaps a dream or very deep slumber. Some people awake with a jolt. Others emerge slowly in a fug of confusion. But awakening eventually happens, even in the darkness of a December morning.

The Melissae are a bit of a mystery, of both the lowercase-m and capital-M variety. Today I'm sharing a roundup of what we know about these Minoan honey/bee goddesses/spirits, both from historical sources and via our shared numinous experiences in Ariadne's Tribe.